My items on the theme of tolerance, internationality... are small, personalized, non-transferable cards that refugees had to use to redeem vouchers for clothing, food, and drugstore items in designated stores until 2013. A refugee received €137 in cash per month; this had to be used to pay for bus tickets, language courses, stamps, books, a carousel ride, swimming pool entry, an ice cream to go, a bottle of beer, a cup of coffee in town, etc., because none of these could be purchased with the vouchers. If a refugee had a €10 food voucher, for example, they could only withdraw a maximum of 10% of their purchase, i.e., a maximum of €1. If they spent €7 on groceries, they incurred a loss of €2. Some stores didn't give any change at all. Consider that many refugees, especially women, had only been to school for a short time, if at all. How were they supposed to master percentages? How were they supposed to add up the total of the items in their shopping carts so that they got as close to €10 as possible, thus minimizing losses? In addition to political campaigning against vouchers, including with the Lower Saxony Refugee Council, concrete support was needed. Many people, including me, provided this support by buying vouchers from refugees and shopping ourselves using the small card and voucher. So we experienced some of the discrimination ourselves, even though we don't even have dark skin. It's enough, for example, if you have a product on the conveyor belt in front of the checkout at ALDI and the cashier doesn't know whether it's a "luxury item": She stops taking the order, rings the bell, the store manager comes over, the whole queue behind me looks at me, checking out what's going on, and discriminatory remarks are made. Sometimes I'm asked to write my signature on a piece of paper - I don't do that, because I'm shopping in the interest of the voucher holder; I don't forge a signature. Then the discussion begins – depending on the situation, I say the woman is sick and I'll do her shopping, or I'll be open about it and threaten to leave the whole cart and not buy anything. Sometimes there's someone behind me in line who agrees with me – sometimes. Because I want to protect the refugees' identities, I stick a black bar over their identification number on their card and also over their signatures. I leave an unidentifiable signature visible… Tolerance means: You are allowed to live next to me. Respect means: I see you with your uniqueness and admire who you are and what you do. Solidarity means: I stand by your side and act in your best interests.
